


Designed For Me

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Afire Love [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Bombing, Claustrophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Q's the voice in his ear, Trapped, angst by the bucketload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-08 00:02:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1919139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A week later, disarming a terrorist attack on home soil, James had just managed to disarm a bomb in the underground car park of a major security company's head offices when the sky started to fall. </p><p>Not even Q could have known that a secondary charge just three stories higher would bring down the twelve-storey offices. But MI6 was the only organization that knew there had been any survivors, because, against all odds: Bond was alive under the enormous weight of the office and the building beside it, utterly trapped, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, completely and utterly helpless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One of THOSE Nights

"Get your pretty little arse back here, you bastard!" James Bond laughed, almost laughing too hard to give chase as Q squeaked and ran. 

"We had one rule!" Q protested, trying to turn this way and that to get a view of the twin handprints James had left in paint on the seat of his cover-alls. "The model doesn't move!" 

James, naked, now splattered in paint because he'd startled Q into flinging it at him, prowled towards him as he continued to try to twist. Q squeaked again, reaching into a pocket and throwing a handful of glitter at him. James let a breath puff a collection of glitter away from his mouth, looking completely unimpressed as he continued to prowl, smiling a slow, predatorial smile as Q debated running left or right. "Why?" 

Q shrugged, grinning dangerously all of a sudden, "Glitter is useful." 

Q ducked, and James had just enough time to swivel before Win catapulted the pallet Q had been using, sending it flying for his chest, splattering paint everywhere. "Oh, so that's how we're going to play, is it?" 

James took one step forward before Q leapt, wrapping arms and legs around his back with a poor facsimile of a battlecry. James grunted, then laughed, "That may not be the best method for trying to strike fear in the hearts of your enemies." 

"I have you for striking fear in the hearts of my enemies." Q scoffed. 

"You're just the one people should fear, but don't." James agreed, pulling lightly at Q's arms around his shoulders. Q obediently dropped down, only to be pulled around to James's front and brought in for a long, slow kiss, James's hands strong around his hips, tongue devastating in his mouth. Q wrapped his arms around the back of James's neck, pressing himself into the warm expanse of chest with a low hum of contentment. "Now you're covered in glitter, too." 

Q grinned, wrinkling his nose, "I'll race you to the bath." 

"You're on." James growled, and Q let out a shout, laughing as he squirmed out of James's hands, racing for the master bathroom, his bare feet slapping against the floor. James took off after him, stronger though he was, Q could be blaringly quick when he wanted to be. James caught Q's arm before he fell over completely, tripping out of his coveralls with a wild laugh before shaking free and running on, and James grinned ferally as he watched Q toss the t-shirt away, gloriously nude and pale as he skidded to a halt beside the tub, grinning back at James. 

"I have won!" Q declared, his voice taking on a deeper pitch, and James closed the distance between them, grabbing him around the shoulders and under his ass, scooping him up and dumping him in the empty tub as he squealed and choked back scolding on his laughter. "This is bloody cold." 

"Squirm." James chided, reaching for a tap while he grinned his way into a kiss, leaning over the edge of the tub while he did. 

Q tugged at James until he sighed as if put-upon, moving like a jungle cat as he climbed over the lip of the tub, settling between Q's thighs, raising himself up enough to kiss him sweetly. There wasn't much about James Bond that could be considered sweet, to the outside world. But Q found that waking up in the curve of James's body to kisses, or being swept into a joke of a dance instead of cooking or cleaning, or leaving Alec or Eve to leave a single, perfectly white orchid blossom on his desk each morning managed to be incredibly sweet. The scars on his tanned skin and the occasional nightmare that left them both awake at three in the morning, resorting to playing cards until the sun came up and Q's alarm went off may not have had a sugar-sweetness, but Q had always enjoyed sour candies, too. 

James kept kissing him, his hands brushing over Q's jaw, trailing calloused fingers down his neck. Q shuddered, his breath catching and his eyes fluttering open hazily, a lazy smile taking over his features. "Are you happy, Q?" 

"Indescribably." Q sighed, rubbing the back of his fingers over the stubble gilding James's jaw golden, "Are you?" 

James looked down Q's chest, shifting in the water and trailing kisses over his collarbone. "Happiness is dangerous for men like me." Q blinked, reaching up to card his fingers through James's short hair, pushing it off his forehead. "I can't be _happy_ , so tell me what I can be." 

"Content." 

James shook his head, "Not good enough." 

"Pleased." 

"Q..." James gave him an unimpressed look. 

"Ecstatic?" Q whispered, as if he was as afraid to say it to James as James was afraid to put it into the world that he was gloriously, deliriously, utterly happy. 

"Better." James allowed. He laid his head down, kissing Q's chest again, thumbs moving to brush and tease at his nipples. "I was thinking more along the lines of _in love_ , though." He murmured, settling his chin low enough on Q's chest that he could look up at the young genius. 

Q's mouth fell open, soft and temptingly pink, as always. "You..." 

"I love you, Bastian Gabriel Kelly." James whispered. 

For a long moment, Q couldn't speak, and James simply waited, because he could see Q's eyes and he knew, finally, just from looking at him, "I love you, too, James Herbert Bond." 

James looked mortified for all of a minute before he started splashing. " _HOW_?!" 

"I'm the Quartermaster at MI6," Q laughed, trying to trap James still with no hope whatsoever, "of course I can find your middle name, darling!" 

James had Q effectively trapped now, staring at him with comedic betrayal, "Why would you--" 

"You brought up my middle name, James." Q reminded, laughing, "Just because Gabriel isn't as bad, doesn't mean turn around isn't fair play." 

"You're a bloody menace." James groaned, dropping his head to Q's chest while the genius laughed delightedly. 

A week later, disarming a terrorist attack on home soil, James had just managed to disarm a bomb in the underground car park of a major security company's head offices when the sky started to fall. 

Not even Q could have known that a secondary charge just three stories higher would bring down the twelve-storey offices. But MI6 was the only organization that knew there had been any survivors, because, against all odds: Bond was alive under the enormous weight of the office and the building beside it, utterly trapped, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, completely and utterly helpless.


	2. Standing in the Rain

It was much like someone trying to talk to him while he was underwater. There was a desperation to the voice that made him zero in on it, and then it was just gone. 

_"James."_ Q said, replacing the desperate tones of one of his underlings. He was so calm, so determined, and James wanted to curl himself into Q's voice like a cat. _"I know you can hear me; and I know that you're hurt. Can you tell me how you're hurt?"_

James groaned, the pain crashing in on him like a tidal wave as he clawed his way through the fog of unconsciousness for that voice. "I...Q..." 

_"James, I'm going to save you, just like you saved me, but I need you to try not to move."_

"Q...no...You can't...be here." James wheezed, and he didn't know how many broken ribs he had, but he settled for the ballpark of _most of them_. He pried his eyes open, and his breath caught on a sound of hopelessness he never would have let out if it were anyone but Q. "There's...there's no way out." 

_"I know there isn't, James, but I make you doors for a living, I can make a way out."_ Q told him, _"Tell me how you're hurt, James."_

"I...My chest is broken. I'm half-covered in rubble, Q. My right leg, too. At the femur, I think. It's bent...bent the wrong way." 

_"I know that hard head of yours took a hit, can you feel for any blood?"_

James did, and he wasn't surprised when he felt the warm, sticky, half-dried mess. "I can't tell where it's coming from without exploring further." 

_"Don't do that, love. Don't do that. Just talk to me, James. You love to talk to me."_

"I...It's really very dark, but I can see the outlines of how I'm trapped. Q, you move one part of this, it'll all crash in," James bit his tongue, trying to rein in a fear and desperation he'd never had to struggle with before. 

_"I know, James. But I'm a genius, remember? And I love you too much to let you die."_ Q had never said the words like that before; lightening the sentiment because Q had never had someone to love, and James knew that being loved was more dangerous than loving. 

"Q, I--"

 _"If you intend on saying it back, James, wait until I've gotten you out."_ Q interrupted, and James could almost see him bending over a desk, the steely glint in his eye and the set in his jaw as he worked on the problem and found a way to save him. 

"H-How many are dead, Q?" James asked, getting dizzy with the effort of keeping conscious. 

_"Fifty-three."_ Q reported, voice pained. It was everyone James had been sent to save. _"Let's not make that number any higher, though, James. Stay awake with me."_

James grunted, "'S only fair." His mind trailed to the last time he'd woken up screaming; how Q had just made them tea and let James slowly come back into himself enough to be able to be touched. He'd wrapped James in his arms and told him about the day he'd brought Win to life. Q had been exhausted, but he'd stayed up with James until Q had to go to work, tucking James into his bed for another try at rest. 

_"Can you imagine what Win would do if I were to come home tonight without you?"_ Q laughed. 

"He'd be glad to have you all to himself again." James croaked a chuckle. 

_"He'd badger me to death."_ Q snorted. _"Do you smell any gas? Is there anything else I should be worried about?"_

James took a breath, but all he could smell was dust, fear, and blood, "I can't tell." He groaned. 

_"It's a right mess out here, James. I'd get Win in to help clean it up, but I don't think the rescue workers would be best pleased at that."_

"He's not built to handle this kind of weight anyway." 

_"Not the weight of the building, no, but he could easily tidy some of the dust."_ Q commented distastefully, and James could imagine the prudish look riding his features. 

James began to fall, and he knew it. He couldn't help the exhaustion overtaking him any more than he could get himself free of this hell. "Don't...don't stop talking to me, Q." 

_"I was dead and I couldn't stop talking to you, James."_ Q reminded him. _"I'm going to get you out of there, get you home, and you'll be sick of hearing me talk, because you'll be stuck listening to me through your entire recovery."_

"How are you going to manage to badger me through my recovery?" 

_"I'll call in a favour."_ Q laughed, _"It's not like the boss won't agree to giving me downtime."_

James smiled; Eve Moneypenny and Bill Tanner were the dual heads of MI6 after the last M so spectacularly failed. They were brilliant; Eve dealing with the body of their snake, and Tanner handling the politics it took to keep everything they did and everything they were a smooth process. 

_"Or would that be using my powers for evil, Bond?"_

"Eve owes me; we should take a fortnight in Paris. I won't even make you fly." 

Q chuckled, the sound deep and rich, _"Not Paris, James; there's a small town in the South of France...I grew up there, until I was about seven, when the woman who'd been taking care of me died--"_ Q cut himself off, and James's mind filled in the rest; Q had been sent to a foster family that had then fled the country when allegations of child abuse threatened to take the children from them; Q being dragged along and then put out onto the street to beg them a living; Q being seized by the British authorities, only to end up in an even more abusive household, until he ran at age twelve and lived on the streets until he was fifteen. Q had gotten a job at an internet cafe then, and MI6 had found him soon after; Boothroyd educating the boy in all the sciences he needed while the boy quickly became the best hacker and most inventive engineer MI6 had ever had. 

James had been to see what was left of those households just after Q had given him unfettered access to the files of Bastian Gabriel Kelly. It'd only been fair, Q justified; because he'd gotten to read James's files, so James should be given the chance to read his. Q had trusted him that he would read, and that the men and women who had beaten Q; who'd made him miserable, malnourished, and scared would go on as they had been, untouched by Bastian becoming Quartermaster of an agency that would have allowed him to ruin or kill them a thousand times over. If James was being honest with himself, the only thing that had saved them was Q's trust in him. Had he found those things without Q's express permission; without the echo of trust at his back, James would have flayed those people alive. 

_"We'll go there, and I'll show you La Chocolaterie Maya, and I can see if I can still read what your favourite is from Anouk's old spinner. Grand-mère Josephine had her youngest granddaughter learn with Anouk, she was like a mother to me if Anouk was my grandmother. She kept the shop open. Maybe there I could remember Anouk's stories, tell them to you. Anouk had wonderful stories; just like her mother, Vianne. I wish she could have met you, James. She would have adored you."_

"We'll go there, and you don't need to read my favourite, I'll tell you; it's chocolate-coated Q." 

Q let out a disbelieving laugh, _"That was deplorable, even for you."_


	3. You're With Me

James pried his eyelids apart only to wish that he'd kept them closed. 

She stared at him, features stony and disapproving, almost hurt. Vesper, beautiful as always, staring at him. "It's for the best, really," the mirage of her told him, "if it weren't you dying; he'd have to. You know that's the cost."

She wasn't real, and he knew that, but he couldn't help seeing her. Hearing her. It was a new kind of torture that his mind cooked up; this image of her. Her eyes were hard and her mouth set, arms crossed over her chest and neck long with superiority. She shifted, and the image of her changed, just a glimpse of her cold, lifeless features as she twitched herself into being the flowing bastion of grace and impossible beauty that he'd always seen her as. 

"What happens when he realizes what you are, James? What you do? Will he love you when you kill him?" 

He wanted to throw something at her; wanted to be able to get angry. But he knew, in his heart, that she was right, in a way. Q didn't know the jagged brokenness of the pieces he so regularly glued back together in Bond. He didn't know the nightmares; only their fallout. 

_"James? Please tell me you're awake and this heartrate is not because you're seizing."_ Q prayed over the comm, and James swallowed, his dry throat a scream of pain that had to get through. 

"I'm awake." He told Q, voice gruff. "I'm fine--" 

_"I have your heartbeat on readout in front of me, James, and you're not at your best when it comes to controlling it to cover a lie, so don't bother. Talk to me; tell me what's going on. Has the situation changed?"_

"It's...it's nothing." James insisted, "No change. I haven't even tried to move." 

_"You really are hurt, then."_ And Q sounded so horribly, brokenly worried that James's heart tugged. _"James, I know it's a lot to ask, but if you're still bleeding, or internally bleeding, I need you to calm down, love. Tell me what's happened."_

"I..." Q's voice had been his lifeline through every nightmare he had, as well as every mission. And when James woke up thinking he was still at war, Q talked him down then, too. But James couldn't tell him he was hallucinating. He couldn't tell him he could see a dead woman, and she was taunting him with how he'd kill Q. This was what little control he had; he could beat his own demons while Q beat the rest to get him out. "I want you to tell me about Boothroyd's Prank War. I wasn't anywhere close to home for that." 

Q let out a hiccup of a laugh. _"Well, like all good MI6 stories, it starts with Alec Trevelyan being a daft sod."_

James smiled in the darkness, and the ghost of Vesper faded away; back into the dark corner of his mind that he'd once lived in, now almost never visited. He idly wondered what Psych would say about his coping strategies; about his knowing he was losing it, and telling no one. He knew without a shadow of a doubt how Q would ream him a new one for not telling him until James was out in the air with him, away from being alone with the parts of himself that wanted him very, very dead. 

_"So Boothroyd and I were wearing pink lab coats for six months after that--not to meet you double-ohs, of course, but to tinker. Hell, he only got me a new lab coat when I was in hospital to have my appendix taken out. A promise of explosions to come, he called it."_

A few very faint things clicked for James, "You were the boffin who collapsed after a shouting match with M over the merits of making the double-oh division bullet-resistant suits." 

_"Fever of thirty-nine degrees and mild dehydration. If I wasn't imagining it, her face was worth the week they forced me into recovery. Also worth the reaming I received about personal health in the workplace, especially when dealing with explosives. That was when the others were made aware of the fact that my pain tolerance is spectacularly high."_

James tried to swallow again, gasping slightly for the pain and hissing for the pain the gasp caused. "What happened to the pink lab coat?" 

_"I had it framed, but it was in the old offices..."_ Q trailed off with some sorrow, and James ached for it; neither of them, at present, needed the sadness or guilt, _"but, you know, the only reason M won that argument is because she told me outright that if I tried to get between specifically you and your bespoke suits, you'd kill me in an imaginative fashion."_

James barked a laugh, picturing it. Q even younger than he was, in a pink lab coat with his puff of wild hair, flushed from the argument and fever, and M invoking James himself as reason bullet-retardant suits were out of the question. "What would you say if I told you that the only way to get me to stop Alec from invoking another war would be an exploding pen?" 

_"In the American colloquialism: Bring it, babe. I was young and not nearly as sure that the double-ohs wouldn't kill me last time. This time, I know it'd only cause you lot the thing you most despise: paperwork."_

James wondered what flamingly red item he could slip into the laundry with Q's lab coats and pants. "Only rule is, we leave the battle for the office; none of it comes home." 

_"Mmm, also no purposeful loss of limb. Deal?"_

"Deal."


	4. Meltdown

"So what's taking you so bloody long?" James wheezed, the painlessness he was feeling indicating that he was going to be unconscious again soon. 

_"I have to calculate the best place to remove the rubble without causing a collapse on you while also making sure the emergency personnel won't notice what will probably be a small explosion and then a sudden appearance of a survivor. I take it you're trapped near the car explosive that didn't go off, so that has to be taken into account, and I'd particularly like it if suspicion wasn't thrown on you, keeping us caught up with the bloody bobbies until all hours."_

James paused, "...Carry on, then." He croaked, and lounged in the sound of Q's laugh. 

_"I have our three best structural engineers helping me with the calculations, and R is running point on containment; it's less terrorist and more radicalism that's brought this particular bang about, so the media is a monster on its own. I don't know what story R is spinning, but so long as she can keep the radicalism under wraps long enough for Alec to find the group and neutralize it, I'll give her that raise she's been after me for."_

"Tell the idiot not to get blown up by radicals until after we lay Q Branch to waste in war."

 _"He says 'fuck you, Bond'. I agree with the sentiment, because Boothroyd was a lot nicer than I am."_ Q hadn't delivered the message, but James appreciated the playfulness Q was masquerading under. _"Wh--That...Oh. James, do you have some sort of blackmail material over Eve's head?"_

Eve's voice cut in before James could respond, _"I'm only delivering tea and supporting the head of Q-Branch in the rescue of a valuable member of the organization."_

_"She's also checking out the entirety of the firefighter calendar--ow!"_

"Eve, don't hit Q, we both know you're guilty; Q, be nice to the pretty lady who's bringing you caffeine, lord knows you need it. I can't even tell how long I've been down here."

 _"Going on five hours."_ Q reported, though they all knew he had a running tally of seconds. _"By the way, James; I claim Moneypenny on the side of Q-Branch. She brings us baked goods; thereby making her queen of the boffins."_

"Not fair." James groaned, "Tanner isn't even likely to play." 

_"I don't want to know what the hell you two are planning, do I?"_

_"Well, we do want to know what_ he's _planning; I can fill you in on what we're planning later."_

 _"I am half the head of MI6: is there any chance in hell of plausible deniability?"_

"No." James and Q answered in unison. 

_"I should have thought it through before letting you two team up. That was poor leadership of me, I am ashamed."_

"We aren't being a team for this; we're the opposing sides." 

_"God help us."_ Eve laughed. _"That might actually be worse."_

James smiled, and he could see M's disapproving glare; her raised brows and arms crossed over her chest. He missed that look. 

"Really, James? The expenditure of man power alone is enough to make Accounting weep." M's echo scolded, and James sighed into a smile. "You're hardly worth it." 

_"James?"_ Q murmured, _"I'm going to get you out soon. Talk to Eve. Keep her calm; she's beginning to have that feral look in her eye like she'll climb the next fireman she sees like a tree."_

"Q?" 

_"He has to make a run for some supplies, James."_ Eve told him, but James could hear the sadness in her voice. 

"You can't get me out, can you?" 

_"We can and we're about to, James, just as soon as Q comes back. Then you can break out of Medical like an imbecile and Q can text me at four in the morning that it was just you breaking into the flat; not someone to be concerned about."_

"Eve, what's going on?" 

_"Well, if I'm not mistaken, Mr. March is making eyes at Q."_

"You'll have to point him out later."

 _"You're not going to kill a British national because he's made eyes at your gorgeousness of a man, Bond. None of us need the paperwork that would cause."_

"Half of Q-Branch would be dead..." he considered, smiling. 

_"And more than a handful of the double-ohs; Alec included."_

"Alec is as straight as they come, Eve--" 

_"Perhaps, but he did give the Quartermaster's arse a good, long look-over before he went on that op in Bolivia."_

James snorted through his nose, closing his eyes, "So that's why he sent me a text of approval."

Eve let out a laugh, _"Have you ever returned the favour?"_

"No, but that's mostly because he's trying to go after you, and you'd castrate me if I presumed to approve. Q and I happen to enjoy having that particular appendage attached to my body." 

_"Cheeky."_ She scolded, laughing, _"And, just so you know; I never approved of you, either."_

"I know." James chuckled. 

_"...I do, though. In my own way."_ Eve murmured softly, _"You keep him safe, you keep him happy, and you'll never find me pointing a gun at you again."_

"I'd move heaven and earth for him, Eve." 

_"I know, my darling dumbarse; why else do you think I let you anywhere near him?"_

Eve's words were punctuated by a small explosion; James hit with sudden and blinding light as his ears began to ring.


	5. Why Do You?

"He's dead, Eve." Q's soft voice filtered through James's consciousness slowly, and James tried to move the moment the words registered; tried to twitch his fingers, or get himself to speak. 

Q's hands were soft, enfolding around his hand, and James could feel the concern of Q's gaze fall on him. 

"It's okay, James. Everything's okay." He murmured, petting James's hair. James wanted to ask, as his sluggish memory brought it up moments later, what the hell Q had been talking about, if he hadn't meant that it was Bond that was dead, but he was falling again, and there was nothing for it but to let himself go. 

_Vesper and M looked at him, neither woman smiling. Vesper's perfectly manicured nails were dripping blood, and M's eyes were clouded, glassy and dead._

_"You'll kill him." Vesper told him easily._

_"You kill everything you love."M agreed, "But everything that loves you dies in agony."_

_James was trapped in the collapse, and he was running out of air. "Will he kill himself to save you?" Vesper wondered, "Or will you kill him to save your country?"_

_"Just like you killed me to save your country." M snapped, "Like you killed your lovers and your friends--"_

_"He's more..." James grit, feeling more and more like he couldn't breathe, "than a lover, or a friend...and you...will never get in the way of that. Nothing will ever get in the way of that--"_

"James! James, love!" Q's voice was sudden, and James found himself crushing the air out of them both as he clung Q to his chest. Coughing, James forced himself to let go, fear cutting through him at the thought that he'd hurt Q. The man leaned up to all fours, reaching for a glass of water by the bedside and putting a straw to James's lips, "Drink in small sips, James. You're safe. I have you now."

The first swallow tore at his throat, and James groaned, but didn't let Q pull away, feeling the chill in Q's skin as his hand closed over Q's wrist to keep him there. He looked up at the man, and he wanted to pull Q into him again; to drown himself in Q until he felt whole and safe again. Q took the glass away when James had drank half of it, and climbed up on the bed with a determined set to his features, keeping himself from sinking into the warmth of James, just hovering above him to press kisses to his face and neck, the tenderness in every barely-there touch of his lips making James break a little more for how much Q was willing to bare himself into vulnerability for James. 

"I love you so much, James. Your heart stopped on the way here, and I thought I'd lost you..." 

"I'm here." James's voice was like splintered glass, but it was there. "I love you, too." 

Q covered the words between them, kissing James slowly but all too softly. James raised one arm, resting his hand splayed over Q's back without really trying to drag Q down into him. He would happily put up with any amount of discomfort that would cause him, but Q would hate for him to cause himself pain; and that alone was enough to keep James from giving into the selfish ache to want Q pressed against him. "Eve, R and I are going to put in a lift at the flat. You can come home once it's done." 

"Are you sure you could take care of me?" 

"You're not that hard to take care of when I keep you doped on pain medications." Q smiled impishly. James grinned lazily, and Q kissed his cheek. "I'll have you home as soon as I can." 

"Just make sure this lift can take our combined weight, hm? We got lucky when Win helped me upstairs." A shadow passed over Q's features, and James pressed his head back in the pillows, looking at him, "Q?" 

"James..." Q got up, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking his hand, "getting you out took some doing. I-I...there was no way to get you out without part of the debris collapsing in on you. There was no way to get to you, and blowing it up would have caused you more damage or it would have caused the second bomb to go off. But there was a way...there was a way in, after a fashion. Win could fit through. I could not. Win got through...and used a small detonation to blow a way into you from inside the debris, directing the blast away from you." 

James swallowed, his heart heavy as his mind reeled, "He's...he's gone, then." 

Q seemed to be on the verge of tears as he nodded, and James reached up for him, pulling him down and kissing him softly, leaning their foreheads together. James felt wet on his cheeks, and he didn't care which of them was crying. He'd began to think of Win as a member of the family Q had pieced together. That Win had gone down in flames to save his life made James painfully aware that there was a lot he and Q would do for each other; too much, perhaps. 

"I'm so sorry, Bastian." James breathed, pressing his thumb to Q's cheek. He kissed the corner of Q's mouth, brushing his fingers under the mess of curls. "I'm so sorry." 

"He wouldn't have let me send any other Rhoomba. And if you think I'm kidding; I'm not." Q gave a watery laugh, kissing James softly. "He knew he was the only one smart enough to get you out safely." 

Q pulled his fingers through James's hair, kissing his forehead. "How long have I been out?" 

"You've been out of the collapse for a little less than a day; in total, about thirty-one hours." Q answered. 

"Go home and get some rest, Q." 

"No." Q answered simply. "I've been given the bed next to yours, you'll not be rid of me until it's time to go home." 

"Then who's building that lift?" 

"R and Eve can manage with my schematics. You really aren't getting rid of me, James." 

"Pull the bed over here, and drop the bars between them." James asked, just as a nurse walked in. "You do that, I'll stay in Medical until it's actually time to go." 

Checking his vitals and medicating him was put on a back-burner as the nurse strode over to Q's bed, disconnecting several things before dropping the bars, as asked, and pushing the bed over to rest as close to James's as it could get. Q shot James a disbelieving look as the woman strode back over to the side of James's bed, taking down his temperature and heartrate on the chart and checking his IV before administering an antibiotic and bustling back out. 

James grinned up at him innocently, and Q narrowed his eyes, "She likes me, really; it's just that I always seem to disappear on them..." 

"However does _that_ happen?" Q muttered sardonically. 

James tried to look guilty, but couldn't pull it off at all. Releasing Q's hand reluctantly, James watched as he crossed the room, climbing into the bed and laying down, reaching his hand back over and taking James's, letting James rest their hands on his abdomen. "Did Eve...when you left, did she know?" 

"Yes," Q sighed, and got his hand out to brush at James's golden eyebrows, tracing the lines of grief and wear down his face and finding himself, for the first time, unable to smooth them. "She brought Win to the collapse." 

James took a shaky breath, catching Q's hand and kissing the tender, meaty flesh under Q's thumb. "She loved him. If she chose me over him--" 

"You're a right git for even thinking that thought, James. Eve wouldn't let you die anymore than I could." 

James's grip on his hand, though gentle, got strong enough that Q knew he wasn't going to get out of it easily, "I am, as you say, old, Q. I've done a lot for my country, and I've been a selfish bastard in the past. I don't suffer any illusions of my worth; I know that in the grand scheme of things, I'm not worth much. But the...the love you have for me? That's worth more than I can put words to, and I live in fear that I will never deserve it." 

Q's eyes turned hard, "James, you are thicker than they give you credit for, you know that? I love you, you buggered bastard, because you've done the things you have, and you're still willing to do anything for what you've decided is worth it. Your country...and now, to an extent, me. You're impossible, and I don't know how the bloody hell I thought I could put up with that self-depricating streak you cover under the Savile Row and the scotch. But I also don't know how I used to manage not knowing that part. Or any part. So I can't and won't lose you, James. Not to your inflated sense of self-sacrifice, and not to a bloody prat with a small but efficient bomb. So get your head out of your arse and know that if I can save you, I always will: because you've damn well driven it home that the reverse is true."


	6. Come Here

Once James's respiratory system had cleared of the dust he'd inhaled and his physiotherapy had been taken into account, James and Q could go home. 

Getting Q away from being woken every few hours by nurses and into their bed seemed like the best course of action as Q drove them home, stopping briefly at the chemist's and then for take out because they both knew neither of them would last for long before going to bed. 

Q had spent the four days of Bond's initial recovery--which was more than James knew they needed him for, but they had him in their clutches, so why not just keep him there until he squirmed?--lording over Q-Branch from James's hospital room; access to MI6 fully had and a tray table that came over the bed for meals just as useful as a desk for paperwork. James had helped Q guide 003 through Turkmenistan from the dubious comfort of his hospital bed, and Q had had to fight laughter as James murmured far more insulting and sardonic versions of his advice in Q's ear than that Q was relating into Alec's as he guided the man through a quick turn in Chile that ended up spitting him out all the way over in Mali. He'd only cut James off when the man started in on a rather colourful account of all the different parasites Alec would be giving birth to very soon; a trip through the Amazonian jungle followed by a rather nasty crash-landing into the Niger river. 

The phrase 'he's not smart enough not to pee in the water, darling; make sure the idiot knows that a parasite will swim up there' had earned him a short swat with a paper copy of the case file, and James laughed loud enough that Alec could hear him in the background. But with James going home, it severely limited what Q would be allowed to do, though the ability to do it was probably about the same. The honest relief in James's eyes as Q herded him into the bedroom rather than having dinner anywhere else was a weakness James was glad no one could see. Not even bothering with proper plates, Q handed James a pair of the rough wooden sticks, clicking his own against the bottom of the first container he picked up before taking a huge mouthful of eggplant into his mouth, seething for a moment at the heat. 

"Eggplant is the worst possible thing you could swallow whole, Q," James laughed, "holds its heat for ages." 

Q grunted, smiling anyway. James popped open a container of dumplings, and Q poured the small packet of soy sauce over them before they each took one. "Cheers," Q chuckled. 

After they'd demolished more food than either of them really should have, James pulled Q's body close against his, tucking himself around the ever-chilled body and breathing in the scent of him; metal and printer ink and the smoke of explosives and havoc wrought. 

Q was pliant and still in James's arms; the exhaustion wearing him thin and James's warmth pulling him under without a hint of mercy. As James's fingers pulled slowly through his hair, Q felt himself sink into the bed and James and every particle of air around him, the peace of their home easing the tension he'd kept at the unfamiliarity of Medical. 

James was not the only one with scars, after all. Q had nightmares, too; though he was never violent in the waking. He'd always been too weak to fight through what haunted him, anyway. The torture that James had saved him from; the loss of his world--he'd thought forever. It was nights Q woke up scared that he'd turned to Win. James was a light sleeper, but he also felt safe with Q; cloistered in Q's domain. Q never woke him, but watching the man breathe and hearing Win sing him a lullabye he'd once sung to Eve had helped. He wondered if James would wake now; or if he could find a way to listen to his heartbeat that wouldn't disturb him. 

James had stripped himself down so that Q could burrow under the blankets he preferred with James wrapped around him, and with their legs tangled together, Q felt himself get warmer than he had been in a while. James's lips brushed at his ear, and Q relaxed into James's quiet, low voice as the man recited his favourite poem from Q's collection, "Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl! And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee, And let me call Heaven’s blessing on thine eyes,   
And let me breathe into the happy air, That doth enfold and touch thee all about, Vows of my slavery, my giving up, My sudden adoration, my great love." 

Q intertwined their fingers, squeezing in thanks. James kissed the curl of his shoulder, hugging him against his chest and burying his face in the worn fabric of Q's favourite sleep-shirt. The hand that wasn't holding his came to rest against Q's heart, and Q closed his eyes, thanking the universe that he'd gotten there. They'd survived everything they had to get to this moment, and Q was absurdly grateful that they were both bloody minded enough. 

Soft, half-asleep kisses pressed to James's hand that was trapped in Q's, and James smiled softly, thinking already of what morning would bring. If he could get Q to sit in the cradle of his hips so that he could just hold him while they lazed the day away; if he could convince Eve to bring them a hot breakfast when he would rise before Q. If the henna James had picked up in Dubai two months previous would be drawn over James's skin; the closest to the mark he wanted that he could get yet. Tattoos weren't an option to a double-oh, and even with Q's blessedly pale skin unmarked, James found himself, more and more, wanting a part of this; a part of them, inked indelibly into his skin. 

But taking a full recovery meant time out of the field, when no one would have the chance to know that Q had drawn his claim over James's skin before the marks could fade, and it was too good an offer to pass up. James's mind trailed to the memory of Eve telling tale of a stash of photographs of art Q had painted on other men, and James wondered all over again. He wasn't jealous; not by a long shot, not anymore. Q was in his arms, lying in their bed, and though the flat had been Q's, James could see parts of himself bursting forth, as they hadn't in any other place he'd lived. James had all but taken over a second office that Q had claimed was a work-out room, though James knew in his heart it hadn't seen hide nor hair of the Quartermaster since its conception into being a work-out room. So James had moved a small home-gym system, and had Q create the same kind of window-paneling that he'd installed in the east-facing wall of the bedroom, making it bright enough in there that when Q was feeling particularly in need, he would actually do his yoga there, because it finally had the light he craved to work in. 

It had taken James no small amount of self-control, the first time he'd returned home when Q wasn't expecting him back, only to find Q bent up, unfurling like a flower blooming at dawn into a new position. James had retrieved a massage oil he'd picked specially for Q from the bathroom, getting rid of torn and bloody clothes to get Q lying under his hands, the knots and tensions worked out under his fingers. It would sometimes lead to a napping Q curled up in a puddle of sunlight, his hair a right mess, and his body slick and fragrant from the oil as James left to shower; but sometimes, Q would keep from unconsciousness long enough to climb into the shower with him, his skin deliriously soft when they got out. 

James felt the most at home when he had Q wrapped around him; the most whole.

He wasn't the broken man that had met Q that grey day in the National Gallery, though. Even James knew that Q had brought him back to life more than any stubbornness James could lay claim to. The man had reached into craggy, spiteful pieces that had been left after Vesper and Eve and M; he'd pulled out the bits of James that needed to be resurrected, and he did it with a sardonic lilt and a sip of tea. 

He'd come back to life because Q challenged him to, and James knew the man was capable of anything just because of that. 

James didn't dream about being trapped down there with his past trying to drive him insane. He dreamt of Q and their life together, and what he hoped to god would be their future. 

James woke to find himself sprawled on his back in the dark, Q's head against his chest as the man's hand held his wrist gently, but tight enough that James would have to struggle to move. 

"Q?" He asked quietly, and he realized about the time that Q twitched against his chest that there was wet there, chilled in the air James needed to keep from overheating in the mess of Q and his blankets. "Q, what's wrong?" His other hand was free, and James reached into the mess of black hair even as Q shook his head 'no', like nothing was wrong, and he wasn't quietly crying against James's chest. "Talk to me, Bastian. You know I need your voice." James whispered now, trying to get Q to look up at him. 

"'S just a nightmare." Q told him, finally tilting his head back. James cupped his cheek in his hand, brushing his thumb over Q's cheek. "I'm sorry." 

"Oh no you don't." James scolded, "If I'm not allowed to apologize when I wake you up, you are most certainly not allowed to, either." James rolled them gently, gathering Q in his arm and bringing him up the bed until he could kiss the tear tracks away. "What did you dream?" 

Q shook his head again, burying his face in James's throat, and James gathered up his limbs, heedless of his cast as he draped Q over his legs as much as he could. 

"Tell me, Q. Is it me?" 

"No," Q gasped, "God, no. It's...being back there. Thinking I'd lost all chance to help you. I don't usually get it if I eat before bed...but Win used to sing me back to sleep after I'd woken up from one, and now--" 

James hushed him gently, stopping the torrent of words because he needed to fix each problem as it came, and he knew from experience that it was no easy task, "You used to wake from nightmares...and Win would put you back to sleep?" 

Q whined, pressing his forehead into James's shoulder, "You feel safe here." He whispered, "And I never wake violently." 

James took himself into account, what had woken him this time. His chest was still largely covered in bandages, but he'd been wrong about how many broken ribs he'd gained, most of them simply cracked or bruised to all hell. But Q hadn't been enough to hurt him. And he'd managed to maneuver James onto his back without waking him, either. 

It'd been the absence, James realized, of Q's body in his arms; he held no illusions that he'd needed Q to be in his arms, and having him gone had woken him just as easily as any alarm. Q's hand slid over his ribs, barely enough pressure on there to be felt, just a radiating point of warmth that wasn't James's, "Did I hurt you?" Q would be devastated, James knew. 

"Worryingly enough, no." James replied, "You weren't in my arms." James told him, pushing his fringe of hair back and kissing him softly, "I woke up because that's where you belong." 

"I'm sorry," Q whispered again. 

"Don't be." James murmured, "I'd rather you woke me than have you alone and scared, needing comfort." 

"I wanted to listen to your heartbeat. I thought it might make it better." 

James nodded once, "Okay." He pulled Q into him again, low enough that Q's ear was resting against his pectoral, James's arms wrapped around him. "Is that okay?" 

"I don't want to hurt you." 

"You aren't." James assured him, running his hands through Q's hair. "Close your eyes." 

Q obeyed, and James was left to consider how often Q woke without him there; how much Win saved his Quartermaster in the dark, when his own mind was hurting him. 

An idea bloomed in the back of James's mind, and he reached for his phone without disturbing Q, sending Eve a quick text that he knew would be met with resistance and shock. But he was James Bond, and resurrection was his speciality.


	7. Figure It All Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating change because porn!

There were two boxes awaiting them when they woke up the next morning, and Eve arrived in short order carrying breakfast for the three of them and looking extremely put-out. 

"Mind telling me what's going on, James?" Q asked, circling close to the boxes while James made himself and Eve coffee and put the kettle on for Q's tea. 

"Last night got me to thinking about the times I'm not going to be here." James told him simply, "So I asked a favour of Eve." 

Q looked over at him, expression confused. "You don't have to worry about--" 

"Yes, he does." Eve cut in. "And, actually, I should have thought of what James thought of sooner, because you two are impossible." 

"Now I'm honestly concerned." 

"Then open the packages." James replied easily, turning to grab Eve's mug in order to hide his features and the hopeful, desperate glint in his eyes. 

Q did so, and he let out a short sound of pain and shock. "James?" 

"I found all that I could in the wreckage," Eve spoke up, "but we both know that you can bring him back, Q. James has a knack for it, after all." 

"You...I can't...He--" 

"Win's main drive was damaged, but not beyond repair. I wouldn't have agreed to go along with James if it had been. I had R look it over, and though she's bloody confused, she told me that you could fix the wiring in your sleep. So all you need is another body." 

"Which of us would be Igor?" James mused, and Q let out a wet, disbelieving snort. 

"You." Eve replied, poking him in the arm. "Now go and make sure the boffin is remembering to breathe." 

James slid around to stand just behind Q, taking in the curve of his neck as he bent his head over the fresh Rhoomba box, standing next to the carefully-packed box of wreckage. "Q?" 

He whipped around, pulling James into his arms and hugging with a desperation that took James's breath away more than the impact on his ribs did. 

"I'll help you in every way I can." James promised, "We can get him back." 

Q let out a laugh that was dangerously close to a sob, nodding into James's neck. "He'll be happy to see you." 

"I'll be bloody ecstatic to see him." 

Looking over James's shoulder, Q mouthed 'thank you' to Eve, relaxing helplessly into James as she nodded and gave a little wave, taking her leave. 

James wasn't surprised to see her gone when they finally let go of each other, James pressing a short kiss to his forehead before he took Q's hand and led him back to their breakfast. 

"I'll reinforce him to be able to take your weight." Q mused as they sat in bed to eat their breakfast. "Though we do have the lift now, so he really doesn't need it..." 

"I still don't know how you manage to be scared of heights and but can sit on a levitating vacuum puck or stand on a completely open lift." Q shrugged, looking speculative for all of a moment before dismissing questioning it in favour of stealing one of James's breakfast sausages. 

"I built Win and Eve and R built the lift; I trust them." 

"Are you planning on making Win bomb-proof?" 

"No, that's where human civilization would fall to the reign of Skynet. It starts with one indestructible, semi-sentient Rhoomba." 

James laughed softly, "What other supplies will you need?" 

"I have everything in the office." Q waved the idea off, "He was my first try at artificial intelligence, you know. I thought I'd make more than just him, maybe have a few that could clean MI6 without causing a security threat, but then Skyfall happened, and I didn't have time anymore." 

"I can imagine it now, twelve Wins terrorizing us double-ohs for bleeding on the carpet." James laughed. 

Q laughed with him, nodding, "Oh, they would. You're lucky Win managed to get the blood out of the workshop floor, or he'd still be cross." 

James laughed with him, catching his chin to raise his lips into a kiss flavoured with icing and cinnamon from Q's cinnamon bun. 

"I'm sorry about bringing him...without any warning. I need you to be taken care of, and I know that's why he was built; to take care of you. When I thought of it last night, it didn't occur to me how much it would hurt either of us, seeing him like that." 

Q shook his head softly, "I should have thought of it, really. Thank you. For making me realize I can bring him back. And thank you for calling Eve instead of going back there yourself."

"I needed you in my arms, and I'm not about to leave your side until it's absolutely necessary." Q's features went soft at the words, and he smiled just slightly, leaning in and resting his forehead against James's shoulder.

Q's fingers reached up, scratching through the scruff gilding James's jaw in gold. "Let's take a bath." He sighed, "Work will wait until later. Right now, we have time for me to kiss you dizzy." 

James grinned, and encouraged Q onto his lap, leaning back against the headboard and tipping his head back to lick into Q's mouth, hands sliding over Q's hips, up his back to cross around him, hugging him there. Q's hands folded over James's shoulders before sliding helplessly into his hair, tugging gently to change the angle of the kiss and throwing himself into it. 

Stroking his tongue over Q's lower lip, James groaned at the kitten-ferocity that Q was putting into kissing him, dropping his head into Q's neck and breathing him in. 

"Will you wake me when I'm here?" James requested muffledly, and Q let out a short moan as James sucked a mark into his skin. "So that I can help you," James's lips were brushing his skin with every word, and Q gasped as James caught the bottom of his shirt and threw it off him, clutching at his skin, "just like you help me." 

Q moaned, pushing himself into James's arms further, his fingers curling against the muscles in his shoulders, "Do you...have nightmares when you're away?" 

James shook his head, "I don't sleep deeply enough." Emotions passed over Q's expression like clouds under a gale of wind; fondness, worry, love, scolding anger, before settling on a tenderness that made James wonder at his life and how he'd managed to get someone quite like Q in his arms. 

"As useful as I know that is," Q began, brushing his hands over James's face like he was studying the feel, "I'm sad to hear it." 

"There are times when I don't want to leave you alone, Q; when I don't want to go back into the field and have to seduce my way through a mission or try to dodge a bullet when your voice starts to let through the strain that I'm putting you through. I can't leave MI6, but I know I want to make it to retirement, and then spend it with you." Q hummed, rubbing the backs of his fingers along James's jaw as he studied James's features. 

"I can't see either of us being very restful in our retirements, James." Q laughed, "But I will get you to your retirement, no matter what it takes." 

James chuckled, curling Q's long legs around his waist and pushing them both up, carrying Q towards the bathroom easily as Q clung on. 

"You really should not be doing this, James." Q scolded softly. "Just imagine what Doctor Markobs would be saying." 

"'Lucky agent'." He replied, groping Q's arse with a laugh at the man's startled squeak before he set him down on the bathroom counter, moving easily enough for the tub.

James had been through surgery for his leg timed suspiciously for when Q had fallen into an exhausted sleep after that first day; the Quartermaster waking to find his agent gone, and almost through surgery. James's doctors had ordered him to start putting as much weight on it as he could; trying to limit the amount of time for physio afterwards to recover his musculature. James was still fairly heavily medicated for the pain, but he didn't require a cane or walker, and could apparently hold Q's weight as well as his own. He'd been cleared to bathe when they'd left Medical, and Q had antiseptic and new bandages waiting in his bag. The tanned skin of his thigh was bruised beyond hell, and Q winced as he very carefully removed the white strip of bandage off, the line of stitches in James's skin making him want to whine for the pain he knew James had to still be feeling. Pain wasn't an issue for Q; his pain tolerance was actually a point of contention between them, because the man didn't have the same instincts for self-preservation that someone with a normal tolerance would have. 

"Hey, I'm healing quickly." James whispered, catching a hand in Q's hair to make him look up, "I'm one step closer to being your first cyborg." James teased. 

"You're not my creature, James; if I'm Victor Frankenstein, you're--" James caught him in a kiss to shut his brain up for a little while, wrapping his arms around Q's lithe body, crushing their mouths together. 

Q was flushed James's favourite of his pinks, his features slack and dazed. Q held onto his shoulders, looking half-way wrecked with just one kiss. James smiled to himself, breathing in against Q's hair, a dark, possessive rumble in his chest at the boffin's smell of vanilla, gun oil, and explosives. 

In stark contrast, Q asked for James's kiss, soft and tentative as he pecked his lips once, twice, before holding them, deepening the kiss until James felt like Q had laid himself completely open to him. James's blunt fingers dug into Q's hip, pulling them together hard as he teased at the waistband of Q's sleep pants. Q let out a low snarl, shoving the boxers James wore to bed down his hips impatiently, wrapping one hand around James's cock. James groaned as Q sucked kisses onto his lips until he could urge James's tongue into his mouth, sucking at the slick muscle until the feel of it make James's knees unreliable. Q let him go with a small shove towards the half-full tub, and James sank into the water obediently, the heat making him hiss at the cold that clung to his skin, working at his stiff bones. 

Q stood over the tub, shirking his clothes and stepping into tub, situating himself between James's thighs, his back to James's chest. 

James reached for bath oil, slicking his palm and reaching around Q's body, fisting his hand around Q's long, thin cock. Q gave a short cry, head tipping back against James's shoulder, "James..." he gasped, hips giving an aborted buck. Q bit his lip hard, forcing himself still with the flash of memory that it wasn't just James's thigh that was hurt, and James let out a short growl, yanking Q against him harder. 

"You don't weigh enough to twinge my bruises, Q; you can bloody well move." 

"I categorically refuse to hurt you." Q growled right back, "James," Q sighed, rolling his head against James's shoulder to look up at him, "not like this. Open me up. I need you, please." 

James closed his legs under the hill of Q's, gripping possessively as he reached under the water with his oil-slick fingers. Q gasped and shivered against him as James traced his finger against Q's hole. 

"God, I need to feel you." Q moaned, his hands going to James's knees. 

"I know, love." And James did, intimately. He knew Q's obsession with touch; with warmth. Q was an utterly sensual creature, and he'd told James off the bat that feeling James's pulse inside him was enough to make him come in and of itself, the heat of James's body an intense pleasure for him to fold himself against. Laying Q out after a yoga session and rubbing oiled hands over his long limbs had become the go-to sense memory when James needed to put on an act of attraction, and having Q's voice in his ear helped incalculably; his voice shivering down Bond's spine and giving him a centre. 

James's weakness was Q's voice; and Q's was James's touch--the two of them balancing like they'd been made for each other and no one else. 

"Am I clean?" James asked on a whisper, knowing that Q would know the lab results before Medical even would. 

"Mmm-hm." Q hummed, nodding lazily. James was briefly thankful to all hell that he hadn't had to shag his way through the last mission. Being trapped and nearly killed was preferable to his clouded brain with Q's body opening so beautifully, his voice shaking on a long, desperate moan. "Bloodwork from last mission came back second day." 

James chuckled, pressing his fingers against Q's prostate and reveling as he threw his head back and let out a short cry. 

It wasn't long before James had to make the decision to take Q apart with his fingers, or to give Q what he wanted. Q shifted at James's urging, whining as his fingers withdrew. Q's thin arms suspended him up, braced on either side of the tub as James pulled him back and guided him down, the both of them letting out the sounds of their pleasure. Q bore down on James, tight enough that James's short nails were close to drawing blood for how hard he'd clenched his fists. 

Q's hands ran over his arms, down to his hands, easing them out of the tight balls to lie flat against Q's panting chest. James immediately brushed the callous-worn hands over Q's delicate skin, his fingers tweaking a nipple until Q jumped in his arms again, hissing as he started to move his hips in a slow, languid roll, rubbing James's cock against his prostate. "Q--oh, fuck, love...you feel so good like this." 

Q was past replying, drowning in sensory input as he tipped his head back and asked silently for a kiss, whimpering as James's hands ran down his body, grinding his hips deeper into Q's before wrapping his hand back around Q's cock. 

Bath water sloshed around them messily, the tap still on full and the only other sound beyond theirs. James focused on the sound of the water to keep himself from coming. 

"James...oh, bugger...James, I'm go-going to--" Q let out a yell as James's thumb swiped over his slit, urging the thick leak of precum from his cock as he sucked kisses along Q's back. Q locked down around him, moaning loud as he came, his quivering so gorgeous James almost followed him down the rabbit hole. James was about to slide free when Q's hand wrapped around his calf, grip hard. "Don't. Either start fucking me again now, or bloody wait 'til I can get hard again with your cock still up my arse. God, this is what I needed." Q's muscles squeezed down deliciously on James, even though he had to be oversensitive, and James let out a choked noise. 

"Q...fucking hell, love. I won't hurt you." 

"You aren't." Q whispered, "Oh, god, James, you aren't. It feels so good. Keep touching me, please." James's hands folded around Q's chest, his thumb tweaking at Q's nipple as he brushed his rough skin over Q's softness, the man shivering desperately, his soft cock twitching valiantly. "Thank god for you." 

Q started to move his hips, muscles clenched around him, urging him over the edge without mercy, and James dropped his face to rest between Q's shoulderblades, giving in as Q moved on him. He came gripping bruises into Q's hips, pumping into the tight heat around him. "God damn it, Q." 

Q pressed back, keeping James's spent cock inside him, "I like the feeling of your cum inside me." Q told him, voice hazy. 

James growled at his words, pulling himself free of Q's channel only to thrust his fingers inside, rubbing his seed as Q let out a startled moan, melting into him. James fucked Q roughly with his fingers, Q's body bowing forwards, away from James's chest. 

James urged him onto his knees, lifted mostly out of the water, his ass sloppy with James's cum, and James's fingers branding Q's rim a nearly-red pink before he ripped himself away from the mesmerizing sight of his fingers sliding into Q's open body. James chased a drip of cum up from Q's perinium until he was delving his tongue into Q's hole, fucking Q with his mouth and rubbing Q's skin bright red with the burn of his stubble. Q was sobbing, his whole body shaking as James turned him inside out. Q had to keep his hands braced on the other end of the tub, or he'd fall into the water face-first, and James didn't wrap his hand around Q's cock again, only letting up when Q was a weeping, begging mess, his constantly touch-needy body thoroughly fucked out even before James wrapped his arms around him and speared his cock back into him once more, leaning over Q's shoulder to watch his cock twitch and pump with precum. 

Q screamed as James came inside him--his orgasm taking the agent by surprise even as Q's release tore through him at the sensation of James's second load of cum bursting inside of him. 

Panting desperately, Q relaxed against James's chest; the man perfectly happy, now, to keep his softening cock in Q's willing body, keeping his cum in his lover for as long as the boffin wanted. 

"No falling asleep, Q." James scolded, voice rough as sandpaper. "I can take your weight, but I have no illusions about the likelihood of slipping and falling on our asses if I try to pick us up wet." 

Q gave a sleepy smile, his eyelashes a dark smudge against his cheeks. "Spoilsport."


	8. How Did You Know

James's fingers ran through Q's mess of hair where he laid on James's uninjured leg, idly looking at car rentals for their trip to France, wondering all the while if Q would agree to let him simply drive all the way, or if taking the train was necessary. James took a deep breath, sighing out through his nose and looking down at Q asleep, curled into as small a ball as he could get himself into. 

Adoration flooded James to the point where he felt as though he'd just found a first love, as if he was some idealistic, spotty teenager, instead of a battler-worn and world-weary secret agent of the most deadly agency of spies and assassins to walk the earth. The youth in the young Quartermaster's sleeping features made James want to wrap around him, protect him from the world they lived in. James bent himself up as much as he could, pressing his lips only barely to Q's brow, gently removing his glasses and setting them aside as he reached down the man's chest, tangling their fingers together. 

Q hummed, turning his head and nuzzling into James's thigh, "This isn't getting Win reborn." He moaned, "But I'm too comfortable to move." 

"Why did you name him Winsome Idiot?" 

"I kept calling you that in my head. Then Win happened, and I tried to be content with him, and not having you." 

"Oh? And what am I in your head now?" 

"Trouble." Q smirked, and James gave his side a light pinch in retaliation. "Maybe if you tell me to get to work, I'll actually do it." 

"No. Wait until I can help you with the welding; then we'll fix him. I rarely believe you have the correct dosage of caffeine when you try to use that bloody blowtorch. You're either buzzing with far, far too much, or you're running on zombie-mode and half-asleep, catching your workbench on fire and needing Win to use the extinguisher you built into him. Which is also a very good idea, that needs to be brought forward, too." 

"Noted." Q grumbled, "And I am perfectly capable of using my own damn blowtorch, James." 

James laughed, "I know you are. I'd just feel better if I could help." 

Q went quiet, long enough that James knew he was reluctantly pulling himself towards agreeing with him, "I made him so I'd stop daydreaming about you." Q admitted, "It'd only be fitting now, having you make him with me." 

A swirl of emotions James didn't deign to analyze made his throat tight, but he smiled, teasing his fingers through Q's hair, "I'm glad you had someone to help take care of you until I got here. I'm sorry it took so long...that it took so much." 

Q shook his head, "I'm just glad you survived to get here. I don't know what I would've done had you not." 

Smiling softly, Q sat himself up and scooted back into James's side, kissing him sweet and slow. James leaned their foreheads together, humming almost sleepily, his eyelashes a golden sheen against his cheeks, "I would quit for you." 

"I don't want that." Q told him, "I want you safe, and I want you happy, but you are happiest out in the field, and you keep the whole bloody world safe, even if you get injured during far too much for me to ever be completely okay with. I'm not a life of espionage and excitement, James. I can't give you everything you need. And when you get bored--" 

"I couldn't get bored with you, Q. I don't think it'd even be possible." James smiles, though it doesn't reach his eyes; too serious to play off. "I fell in love with a dead man, and you came back to life." Q kisses the words off his lips, wrapping himself around James and clinging to him as gently as possible, even though James really wouldn't care if it hurt, just to have Q in his arms. "I've been yours since you trusted me enough to throw away your career to help me with Silva. You brought me back; broken, bloodied, and grieving both my dignity and a woman who we both cared for enough that you, by rights, should hate me for the role I played in her death." 

Q's fingers slid over James's lips, and he shook his head softly, "Stop. Silva was evil, conniving, and lucky. He's the only one I will ever blame for the destruction he wrought. M had as much a hand in her own death--and the deaths of all those people--as you or I. She was brilliant and ruthless and it came back to bite her in the end." 

Q kissed him softly, and James wrapped his arms low around his waist, thankful all over again for Q's very existence. 

"Don't leave MI6 on my account, James," Q sighed, slightly breathless from kissing him, "do what you want: I have your back. Always." 

"Really? Because there's this boffin in Q-Branch that threatened me with physical harm if I were to decide to not return with my equipment." James laughed. 

"In my expert opinion, I would heed that warning, James. Death by pen while filling out paperwork is hardly a worthy way to go for a double-oh." 

James's eyes lit up with mirth, his arms pulling Q high against him, leaning back as far as he could so that Q could throw his leg over and straddle him. "This is how I know you love me." 

Q cupped his hands around the back of James's neck, thumbs brushing idly through his hair, "I know you love me because you keep coming back," he whispered, kissing James quiet for a stretch that could have been hours, just relishing the taste of James's lips and the skill of his mouth. 

The only thing to tear them apart was the alarm Q had set to make sure James took his medications, James groaning like a child forced to take a nasty vitamin by its overbearing parent. 

"You fed me the bloody pills properly for months, James--" 

"The doctors weren't even sure if you'd regain full use of your hands--" 

"--it's only fair that I give you the same care you took of me." Q gave him a quelling look, standing up with a vaguely prim air and going to the collection of pill bottles James really hated seeing in their home again. 

"This isn't right." James protested mildly, "I'm meant to be taking care of you--"

"Yes, well, when you start actually taking care of yourself, we may revisit this negotiation. For now, you can take care of me, and I'll take care of you, and we can argue who's worse at caring for themselves later." 

James shook his head, catching Q's wrist and pulling him down to sit on the thigh that wasn't stitched and bandaged, holding him close. 

"I really should be too old for lap-sitting, James." Q scolded, burying his face in James's hair anyway, wrapping his arms around his broad shoulders and breathing him in. James swallowed the pills he'd collected for him dry, then moved his head gently, twisting to look up at Q and easing them into a slow, sleepy kind of kiss that had Q melting into him. "Let's take this to the bed, James. I never much fancied this couch for cuddling. When you're better, we'll have to go shopping. Make sure we get something big enough for us to properly break in."

James laughed at the mischief in Q's eyes, despite the sleepy sigh of his words. Taking his hand, James rose, wrapping their fingers together and pulling Q under his arm as they walked, "I never much cared for that sofa, either. I had one that was something of a relic. White, which is completely inappropriate for us, but getting it reupholstered is not a problem." 

"Something of a relic?" Q asked, snorting. 

"It was built in the sixties, I found it at the sale of a storage unit, and it's shockingly perfect. I've fallen asleep there quite accidentally many times." 

"You got rid of your apartment..." 

"I did, but Alec has the couch." 

"And it's _survived_?!" Q asked in only partially-mocking shock. 

"It's that good of a couch, Q." James grinned, "The sixties--" 

"If you say anything about being good for producing things that can survive anything, I may shoot you myself, old man. Besides, you were born in seventy-eight." 

James grinned, pressing a kiss to Q's hair and pulling them both down on the bed, his arms wrapping around Q even as they fell, pulling him tight against his chest and kissing his cheek sweetly. "Would you tell me more about this little town we're going to?" 

Q smiled a little uneasily, but laid his head in the curve of James's shoulder, idly toying with the shirt James had put on to stop Q from worrying over the fading bruises littering his chest. "Anouk and Vianne were gypsies for a long time; they came from South American gypsies--only here because Vianne's father had fallen in love with her mother. Their time in a place was measured whenever a sly wind would blow from the North. When it came, they had to go find a new place, with new people to save and friendships to make. The town was the last town the wind blew them to, before Vianne finally felt like it was okay for her to stay. Anouk was raised there, by Vianne and her lover, Roux. Grand-mère Josephine had been in an abusive marriage, until Vianne gave her the strength and the opportunity to leave it. The town had been bleak and grey before Anouk and Vianne got there, and they fought, tooth and nail, to bring it to life."

"Seems to be a family trait." James mused, "You brought me back the same way." Q didn't smile, his fingers sliding along the insides of James's, his breathing slow and steady as he looked into James's eyes, knowing exactly what he meant, and what he'd done. 

James thought of the sculpture downstairs; of James's bloody big ship cast on waters that would swallow it whole, and the simple, safe harbour Q's tugboat was trying to get it to; the painting's Fighting Tremeraire being dragged into the burning gold of the sunset, out of the cloudy grey that had surrounded its old masts. When they'd first met, Q had told him it was sad; that the old, great warship was being ignominiously towed away for scrap. Now, James knew that hadn't been it at all; a bait for Bond to get on-edge about their disparate ages; to get him to react to something, even if it was simple annoyance at the age of the boffin and the implications he'd fed to James's ego. Q knew then that he'd be the one to drag James out of the bleak; kicking and screaming, if he had to. 

"They were the Kellys?" 

"No, that was an alias that came later. Bastian was Anouk's doing; Gabriel Grand-mère Josephine's. Kelly was the name of a detective-inspector that had helped me away from...well, had he not died soon after, he may have saved me twice, and I may never have ended up on the street, only to hack my way into MI5 because I was bored at work." 

James wrapped his arms around Q as much he could, "Q...I'm so sorry." 

"No, James; it's alright. I got here, and that's all that matters to me now. Boothroyd and M took me in and gave me my life. Gave me a way to get to you. I can't help but feel like it's worth it, the life I have now." 

James kissed the corner of his mouth--asking for him to let Bond get over the anger and pain Q's words brought him, leaning their foreheads together. 

"You went through more than I have, James." Q whispered, rubbing at James's ear; something that soothed James immensely, usually. "We're perfectly broken, in all the ways that make us fit together without a fault." 

James kissed the words off his lips, affection bursting in his chest. "I've been meaning to ask you if you'd use the henna I brought from Dubai...give me a tattoo, if only temporarily." 

Q's eyes lit, and a look of gleeful anticipation flashed over his features before he controlled it. "What were you thinking of?" 

"That you've used other men as your canvas before, and you're the artistic one of the two of us. I'd rather you decide what you want to draw, and where." 

Q hummed, thinking. His hand slid over James's back. "I think we should wait until your ribs are better. I like the idea of your back covered in ink." 

James rumbled happily, "I like that idea as well." The bandages wrapped around his chest were suddenly very much in the way, but James knew he had to behave, or Q would tear him a new one. 

"But there's a lot of it, so you should think about using me as a canvas, too." Q murmured, kissing his eyebrow, "I know you have at least some artistic skill." 

James huffed a laugh, "I'd like that. Almost as good as lovebites; covering you in my mark, and no one would know but you and I." 

Q shivered lightly, pressing James into a long, hot kiss. "Can't wait."


	9. Blue Eyes Blind

"How the bloody hell did you even make something capable of giving one of those flight?" Bond asked, staring at the Rhoomba that would hopefully become Win as it vacuumed. 

"I have a friend with a knack for that kind of thing; it was mostly to make sure it could be done. Besides, I much prefer using Win than a ladder to reach the top of my shelves." 

"You need more, by the way." 

"I've been considering just building an addition to serve as a library." 

"Make it like a solarium?" 

"I could do that..." Q mused, "though I have to warn you that for as much as I love things that grow, I have a bit of a black thumb." 

"Mmm, well, mine's green enough, so long as I could trust you to follow a watering schedule." 

"Win would do wonderfully with a watering schedule..." Q mused, eyes bright with a devilishness that had James laughing, leaning into Q and pressing a kiss to his collarbone. 

"Get to coding; I'll see what I can do about prying the damn thing apart enough for us to tinker." 

Q grinned, attaching the slightly-repaired central nervous system of his foray into AI to his laptop, humming to himself happily. There was a short chirrup, and Q's head snapped up, his brows pulling together just slightly, "Eve's coming up the walk." 

"What's the tone for my impending appearance?" 

"'I'm bringing sexy back'." Q shrugged, "I thought it apt." 

Looking somewhere between amused and perturbed, James shook his head, kissing the cloud of hair on Q's head and walking to the door, opening it before Eve had a chance to enter her access code. 

"Miss Moneypenny, to what do we owe the honour?" 

"Espionage, death, dismemberment; the usual." Eve smiled, accepting James's offered hand to help her over the threshold into the lowered workshop inside the door. "Lovely to know you two do occasionally wear something resembling trousers." 

Q snorted, glancing at James in his his t-shirt and boxers he preferred for bed; Q dressed in the rattiest clothes he had--perfect for being a mad scientist. "Well, pants is the minimum requirement of soldering anything." James informed her lightly, grinning. 

Eve shook her head fondly, "Well, you boys need to know that there's been whispers lately...that Silva and M were working together, and they were not the only ones within MI6 to be in the arrangement."

Q and James both froze; their expressions a match of barely-suppressed rage and protective wrath. "Who?" 

"Danielle brought the information to me herself; the files that we recovered from Mallory's machines and that that had been viewed on the computer Q blew up the arms manufactures from marked Mallory with Silva; ultimately using him to get rid of M to advance himself. But there's a trace, just a small one, of someone else." 

"I need to call Danielle." Q asserted, standing up from the workbench and heading for the stairs. 

"No; we have to be careful." James urged immediately, "If whoever the fuck is still double-crossing us catches wind of even a whisper, we'll lose them." 

"Whoever it was...fed information to the radicals. Told them that the car bomb, while effective, needed to be backed up, and where to put the charge." Eve was wincing even as she said the words. 

"It doesn't matter if we lose them, James; you underestimate my ability to track them down again." 

The two agents that had been field-worthy looked at each other; both of them scared and respectful of the wrath Q exuded. 

Q turned from the workbench, catching sight of the Rhoomba, and the look of utter wickedness that crossed over his features was enough to make Moneypenny nervous. "Oh, that would be..." 

"Q?" James questioned, sounding just as nervous as Eve felt. 

"I'd planned on making Win the trial run of a cleaning staff...I never considered that, with the right programming, they could be used for security, as well. Win's hive mind was connected to the house--" 

"Could you make it possible to back-door into the electronics in use in any given room, should I provide your hive mind with access to MI6 servers?" Eve caught on, the devilish glint sparking in her as well. 

James stared at the little puck, debating whether to be proud or scared of the destruction his lover could wreak on an unsuspecting mass, even with something as thoroughly innocuous as a robotic vacuum. "Eve, if you could call the manufacturers; Q, we need help if we plan on making more than five--" 

"Call Alec, I trust him. I've got a few coders and engineers we can trust, too. It'll have to be here we build them, though." 

"They don't have to have speaking capabilities, or flight; just the ability to tap us into the goings on." 

"And a weapons system." Q growled, James and Eve sharing a look over his head. 

James slid off of the high stool next to Q's at the workbench, grunting minutely as weight was put on his leg again. He moved around Eve, heading for the stairs and his cell instead of initiating the call through the home system. Eve spun on her heel, following him quickly, shaking her head to herself at noticing that James and Q were both barefoot in the metal and glass-scattered workshop. "I'm sorry, James." She murmured quietly. 

"If you're the leak, you should be sorry, Moneypenny. Otherwise, the only thing I would ask of you is time off on the arse-end of this. Two weeks with Q and I only available should the world be ending." 

"If you think you can keep him out of the office for that long, more power to you." Eve laughed lightly, but not unkindly. James allowed a small smirk to press into his features, inclining his head at the fairness of the statement. 

"We'll be out of the country, so Win will be in your hands." 

"Delighted." Eve grinned slightly. "Where?" 

"Southern France." 

"Oh, wonderful. Do you need me to stealthily get him a suit?" 

James let out a hollow laugh, "What makes you think for a moment that I haven't already?" Cocking an eyebrow at her, he called Alec smoothly, standing in the middle of the living room because he knew it would only hurt to sit down and stand again. Eve smiled, shaking her head as she headed for the office to find the manufacturer's information and make the call of her own. "Twenty should cover it, Eve." James called after her as the call rang through. 

What was left unsaid between them was that there were a limited number of people who could accurately feed the kind of information that had been fed to the terrorists: An agent, well-versed in destruction and chaos; or an engineer, who could just as easily tell where to place a bomb as he could how the structure was designed. A savage hope rested in James's chest that Q wouldn't be able to weaponize the things; it'd give him something to take this aggression out on.

James went to the laptop Q had designed specifically for him; limited access, after retinal and voice recognition scans, to the MI6 servers--an allowance Q made to encourage James's paperwork to be done on time. But James could also pull up a directory, of sorts: agents' names and a short blurb of a bio, though James wasn't even slightly sure that would do him any good in answering the question of who it might be. 

James didn't look up from the screen as Eve came back out, "Don't read this over my shoulder; it'll start security measures in the flat and send Q-Branch an SOS." 

Changing her trajectory so that she stood behind the screen instead of joining James in front of it, Eve frowned down on it. 

"Q built it for me. If it registers anyone besides him or I trying to use it or even trying to read over our shoulder, it's to ensure we aren't compromised and being forced to show anyone the data." 

"Seriously?" Eve gave a disbelieving laugh, but her brain quickly caught up to what he'd said and just who they were talking about. "Conceded." 

James nodded, still not bothering to look up, "Alec is on his way. I want to look at the possibilities before he gets here, we can discuss it while we work." 

"James...I trust you both, but--" 

"Mallory and Silva were working together; have you linked Silva and that ruddy imbecile that they tried to replace Q with?" Finally, those blue eyes glanced up at her, and Eve's breath caught. 

"If a link is there..." 

"Logical assumption would be that an agent was involved, rather than a boffin." 

"Bloody fucking--" Eve cut herself off as James's features shifted in reaction to whatever he was reading on the screen. 

"Damn it, Q!" James suddenly snapped, blue eyes blazing, "For a genius, he--" 

"James." Eve called softly, raising one finger. 

"He lets double-ohs have privacy when we're not on-mission. He keeps an eye to keep us out of trouble, but so long as we do come home at a reasonable time, he will let us do what we need to." 

"And you're cursing him because...?" 

"Because the bloody idiot might damn well have been kidnapped by one of us. Q was taken from a bloody Tube station: no CCTV footage, and no witnesses, just coming out of rush hour..." 

"What are the chances of you resisting the urge to kill the bastard?" 

"Nil at best. Worse if Q's massaging his right hand down there right now." Eve's expression darkened, because she'd noticed, in the long weeks following Q's reinstatement, that it was an echo of the injury, irritated by tension and typing. 

"Good." She bit off, the very picture of Nemesis herself; vengance in every line of her body. "This one doesn't get to live." 

"Yes, ma'am." James replied with a smile like the curve of a knife; a wild protectiveness that could've made Moneypenny nervous. 

"Make an example of it. So that no one will ever doubt the lengths we'll go to." 

"Q's always told me I'm best for striking fear into the hearts of his enemies." 

Moneypenny had a knife-edge smile of her own, "Get it done, agent."


	10. The World Ain't Ending (But It Might As Well Be)

Alec Trevelyan was smoking out of the window of the back corner of the workshop; the area scattered with half-finished pieces of art and tech. Casting his gaze around, he wasn't surprised that James had gotten in so deep, but he couldn't help being surprised that they'd managed to survive that long. 

James could be heard yelling in panicked desperation at Q doing something he ought to leave to the more-replaceable worker bees; James and Alec counted among them, as far as James was concerned, because James was nothing if not a stubborn, protective bastard. Sighing out a long stream of smoke, he wasn't surprised to hear James being banished to join him in taking a break. For just a moment, Alec went to offer James the pack of cigarettes before he could catch himself and remember that James hadn't smoked since he'd fallen down the rabbit hold with Q wrapped around him. 

"Are you sure the boffin's going to be able to narrow things down?" 

"There were six of us out there. 009 was meant to be in Bangladesh; 003 and 008 in some grove in the middle of Turkey; you in a Pakistani desert; me en route home from Denmark; and 001 in Australia. Of those, 009, 001, and 003 were not completely accounted for. We had a bead on 008 only because he was getting into trouble with the local police at the time. I trust you were in Pakistan mostly because you tried to blow yourself up...again." 

Alec snorted, shaking his head, "So we have a traitor in our midst; and three suspects. If your hunch is right, and if the whispers are true." Alec sighed out a plume of smoke through his nose this time, "You mentioned that Q has a tracker embedded--" 

"It dumps data as soon as it's collected, I've asked." James nodded, "Q didn't want to take the chance that anyone would get their hands on the information, predict a pattern. Besides, we only know if Q gets worried and accesses the chip. Well, apart from my tracker." James offered the ghost of a smile. 

"Oh?" 

"He was making sure I didn't kill anyone extraneous in Denmark before boarding the plane." 

"Ah, that was the one with the bloody psychic fair and the damn snake, was it not?" 

"I nearly took a diplomat's head off. Q knew I'd need to be kept on a bit of a tighter leash until he unleashed his own brand of hell on the bastard." 

Alec looked over at him, "He does those kinds of things, does he?" 

"Alec, I realize that you thought this was temporary, but--" 

"It doesn't matter, James. I simply...wonder, if you've considered that Quartermaster in there has your life in his hands regularly; and you're getting old. Even if it doesn't end with your gun backfiring on you--what happens when it ends with you old and unable to hold his interest?" 

James froze, regarding his best friend in the world, "Alec, what do you suppose holds his interest now? I haven't been able to place it; it's inexplicable to me that he's so much as given me the time of day. I'm old already; worn and a shameless flirt that has to sleep with other people in order to do my job. It makes no sense." 

"James--" 

"He asks me the same things, you know; what will happen when I get bored of him. As if he thinks that could happen." James shook his head, "I suppose, when I'm too old and broken for him, I'll ask you for a bullet, worst-case scenario. It's the only way I can see him accepting defeat. He'd loathe me." James chuckled, "So let's not let the thought occur to him, shall we?" 

"You're trying to get me killed, too." Alec laughed, laying a hand over his heart like he was touched at the thought, "How sweet." 

"You forget; if I'm of useless age, you are, too." 

Alec pulled a face, "At least you have the boffin, then, I guess." 

"Moneypenny was flirting with firemen. Make your bloody move." 

Alec shot him a look, and James simply smirked, moving past him to return to his boffin once more. Sighing, Alec stubbed out the last of the cigarette, wondering at the change in James. Alec reached the main floor of the workshop as an alarm started to softly sound, and James grinned lazily at Q where he was perched above a mess of electronics, leaning into the skinny frame with his head tipped back for a kiss that was purely for the enjoyment of being intimate, before moving for the stairs up into their inner sanctum, using the cane he'd been given like a good lad, and presumably off to do whatever was causing the alarm. "Pills?" Alec guessed, and Q nodded distractedly, caught back up in the mess in front of him. 

"Oh, and Agent Trevelyan. If you intend on putting a bullet in James's head, I will break you in ways that won't give you such an easy way out." Q called before Alec could join the particular group of boffins that had claimed him as their heavy. Alec looked over at the overlord of chaos that not even he and James could compete with, "It's reckless and difficult, but I will keep him for as long as I can. And when it's time for it to end, it'll be because he stops loving me, not the other way 'round." 

Alec was honestly scared that Q had heard their entire conversation, wondering at the listening devices planted in his own bloody flat. 

As if he heard this, Q looked up at him owlishly, blinking behind his glasses, "You put Jasmine's modified sound compartment in your pocket while you were helping her to not lose fingers. Thanks for that, by the way." 

Q turned back to the mess, and Alec knew he'd been summarily dismissed, left in a muddle of shock. Aforementioned boffin; slight, with her hair in dread locks and her lips pierced, came up to his side as if trying to coax him into giving it back. When that didn't work, however, she simply reached into the inner pocket he'd managed to get it into while struggling with a reluctant piece trying to escape her blowtorch. Sketching a salute to him, she turned back to her team, clicking it into place and with a whir the whole bloody thing came to life. "Boss?" 

"Go ahead. Lord knows I did." Q answered distractedly, and Alec watched in half-scared shock as Jasmine and her team tipped their heads back, throwing their arms into the air, chorusing 'IT'S ALIVE!' in true mad-scientist fashion to the ceiling. "Name her!" Q laughed, tossing another boffin a Sharpie. 

James was laughing as he came back down the stairs only a little unsteadily. 

"'The Boss'?" Jasmine offered Alec, turning as if he got a say. 

"You're the deciding vote, Alec. Choke your tongue back up and use it to reply." Q chided. James circled back to him, easily sliding a rather sharp piece of motherboard away from Q's skin as he carelessly leaned over the one he was fixing, heedless of any danger he was presenting himself. 

"Uh...absolutely, though won't that confuse--" 

"Point." Jasmine murmured. 

"Beyonce." Q spoke up, shrugging, "Name her Beyonce." 

Jasmine laughed, tickled, and Alec wondered, not for the first time, what the hell kind of madness he'd fallen into.

"Alec, make your vote." James laughed, "Don't let it be Beyonce." 

"What the hell should we call her, Alec?" Jasmine asked, grinning. 

"Alice." Alec answered before Q could open his mouth for another suggestion. 

"Down the rabbit hole she goes." Q chuckled. 

"Hello, Alice." Everyone chorused. With a soft whir and then a chirp, the little bot got Jasmine to put it on the ground, only to go chasing over the metal filings and bits over the roughened concrete floor, its little wheels shrieking as it vacuumed hyperactively. 

Alec turned to the Evil Overlord to find James wrapped around him; balancing his chin on the boffin's head as his fingers typed with an efficiency Alec had never seen James have with computers. 

"Alright, Alice; let's see what you can do." James murmured fondly, his eyes crinkling with the kind of smile that only came with a challenge.

"Pulling up now." Q reported to the room at large, making a complicated hand-gesture in front of the screen before throwing his arms wide, projecting the image over the entire wall behind the bench. 

Alec hadn't even know it was a screen, and Jasmine smirked to herself as he stumbled just a bit. "006, if you'd be so kind." Jasmine hooked a finger in the space between two buttons of Alec's shirt, pulling lightly until they were out of hearing range for the others. "That's nice--looks like linen, but it feels like heaven." She told him. 

"Clear!" Q shouted. 

Jasmine dropped her voice, "You know, I've been looking to find myself a good tailor; unorthodox, flexible if I have to reschedule..." 

"Good, Jas--try whispering now." Q called back again. 

Jasmine leaned in and whispered, "I've always imagined you and 007 as the twin gods of death and chaos. All done up in your bespoke suits; one with a gun, the other with a cane that...in just the right light, looks like a scythe..." 

"I'm putting an illustration of that in your Christmas bonus, Miss Eveline!" Q laughed happily, "Bloody well done, all of you!" 

Cheers and the clapping sounds of high-fives being passed around made Alec shake his head in disbelief as James came back to join them, grinning as he caught Jasmine's hand and kissed the back. 

"I'll need one of those scythes, Q." James called to him. 

"You'll heal perfectly--" 

"An enemy needn't know that." James's voice was deep and warm, the jubilation pouring from the boffins loosening him up from the tight tension that had been riding him all day, "Now, next one to raise one of these little angels gets a double-oh guard to go on a date of your choosing; boring family events, wedding of an ex--only thing out of reach is an unnecessary kill." 

"But we can bloody well start fires from halfway across the room for you if it gets really _too_ dull!" Alec interjected, laughing at the solace James had dragged up rather than going mad and hunting his way through MI6 himself. 

There was another short chorus of cheers, and Q was laughing with Jasmine, a light in his eyes as he coded, going over the image she had in mind even while he made their army flawless. 

"Do the boffins ever scare you?" 

"What, because they could level the face of the planet in their sleep, look like they're barely out of their teens, and have a predilection for the very havoc we so dearly love to wreak? Whyever weren't you scared before?"


	11. Fallen in the Space Between

It took two weeks of the Rhoomba surveillance army gathering intel before anything cracked a leak, and then Alec was on a flight to Bangladesh; hoping to catch the bastard before he could run any further, with Jasmine and Q in his ear. 

Q was still in the flat, he hoped. With James relegated to making him tea and dinner as Alec tore down city streets like the reckless idiot he claimed to be. Jasmine and R were handling Q-Branch masterfully, but it'd been agreed upon that this op needed Q's attention, and James wouldn't hear about protocol (then again, Eve really didn't push it). 

In the end, it was all rather anti-climatic, Alec decided as he put three bullets into the weaselly slime that had once been 009. 

Moving past the body into the dwelling he'd been running to, Alec only barely reacted in time as bullets began to debris down on him. 

A woman was screaming and sobbing, and a child was fully weeping; the little boy's eyes just like 009's. 

"Q, assess: there's a woman and child, looking like hostages." Alec tore out, getting two rounds out before a bullet came all too close to his arm and he pulled it back with a low curse in Russian. 

_"009 had a history here, most certainly. Before joining MI6 he was a soldier; got himself presumed dead for years, until a reporter stumbled across his face there in Bangladesh and started putting pieces together; retrograde amnesia, and no doctors, equals for a little under a year lost for the man. He had shrapnel removed in a very risky surgery in the bloody best hospital money could buy--"_

_"Q, there's a discrepancy,"_ Alec heard Bond's rumble close enough to the mic for him to actually be heard. 

_"Oh, bloody hell...there's a communique, looks like a missed call but its memory usage is more like a video file than a voicemail, and the only reason I can see it is because there's a data discrepancy from one minute to the next, without a record of any calls, texts, or emails."_

"I don't bloody care _how_!" Alec began to snarl, returning fire blindly as he huddled against the kitchen table. 

The woman and children's cries were cut off with two suddenly-deafening shots, and Alec saw red. 

009 had betrayed Queen and Country for the one thing they weren't meant to ever have: family. His had been taken, Alec had no doubt, by Silva or Mallory. He'd been complicit in trying to kill James and the fifty-three men and women who were in that explosion; but he'd done it for the protection of his family. Alec's anger wasn't even slightly directed inwards: he'd killed a victim, but a victim who'd been stupid enough to simply comply, surrounded by men and women who could make the world beg from the comfort of their morning cereal and tea. 

_"Alec, get out of there, if you please."_ Q requested; the change in his voice sending Alec's flight reflexes screaming to the fore. 

Alec's breath caught, his gaze sliding to the door nervously, unsure of whether or not he could make it without catching a bullet. _"006, they'll run out of ammo in five...four, three...two...one."_ Jasmine told him calmly. The din took just a moment to fully subside, and Alec was in motion before the dust even began to settle. _"That pen you swiped off Q's desk: triple click and rotate til you hear a pop, the throw."_

Alec barked out a laugh, doing as he was told and leaping out of the door, throwing his arms over his head in mid-air. The explosion that results has James yelling indistinctly at Q, something about how fair it was that Alec got the exploding pen and he didn't. 

"Oh, suck it up, princess. You, at least, get to bed the boy; I'd better get some bonus." Alec bit off, rolling and forcing himself to his feet, stumbling slightly before he steadied enough to turn back to the wreckage. "I'd like to come home now, lads." 

_"Absolutely, dear,"_ Q answered primly, _"009's hotel number is being texted to you now; retrieve anything you find."_

"Yes, sir." Alec sighed, cracking his neck and shaking his arms out. 

Half way around the world, Q sighed, sitting back hard on his chair, taking his glasses off his nose like they pained him, rubbing the bridge of his nose and his eyes. James wrapped a hand around the back of his neck; massaging gently. Q moaned lewdly at the pressure of his fingers, tipping his head back over James's wrist. 

James hushed him softly, bending over to kiss Q's eyelids, urging a sigh of bliss out of Q's throat, "We won..." Q breathed, then opened his eyes to look up at James, almost disappointed that he was cast in too much shadow for Q to see his eyes, "why don't I feel like we've won?"

"We've won, Q. It may never feel like it; but we need to continue to." James whispered, brushing the backs of his fingers over Q's cheek, the soft scratch of his two-day stubble making James walked to feel the burn over his lips. "Alec will want to disappear for a few days."

Q nodded, blinking as though it took almost too much effort to open them again, "I feel as though 009 and his charges deserve a burial." Q turned his chair, looking up at James, folding his hands over his stomach. 

James took a moment; looking at his lover. He could almost see where Q had been beaten and broken; could see the shadows of his bruises and cuts. The man they'd just killed had been a part of that. Had taken Q away, had nearly cost him his life. James questioned if he could forgive the man, and a selfish twist knew that he wouldn't, but he nodded to Q anyway; agreeing that remembrance was the better option. Though neither of them would admit it; accepting that the man had done what he'd done for good reason would help both Alec and Q with the part they'd played. 

_"Alec's set to come home, boss. You are officially off duty unless the world ends."_

Q shook his head, sighing, "Alec's tracker is activated by the password godofchaos in the laptop hidden in the compartment under my third desk drawer. Keep an eye on him, and let him know in a few days that we intend on properly burying them. We know the truth; it doesn't mean the world has to." 

_"Yes, sir."_ Jasmine replied quietly, _"Oh, sir? ...Thank you, for letting us bring Alice, Dorothy, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, and Susan to life. For sharing that..."_

"Alice has been Shanghaied into service for Tanner and Moneypennys' offices; Dorothy has been requested by the warren of double-oh offices that they never use; and Peter, Lucy, Edmund, and Susan are all ours. We've got requests in for more, as well. I'll arrange a department-wide day of building when I return. It'll help with...loyalty, or togetherness. Something like that. I'm sure I'll find something to slap on it that Moneypenny will see through but Tanner will cave for." 

Jasmine and James both laughed softly. _"Headquarters out, sir."_

"Good luck, the lot of you." Q replied warmly, disconnecting the comm line between them. 

James moved his hands from the back of Q's neck to his shoulders, scowling to himself at the tension coiled in his muscles. "I think you may need an actual chiropractor." 

Q let out a pfft, but groaned into the attention anyway. 

"Spoke with Doctor Markobs and pressed that x-ray you put into the entry sensors into service; I can go without the bandages now." James told him lightly. 

"That is very good news. Did she say anything about lowering the pain medications?" 

"I haven't been taking those. Just the antibiotics." James admitted, already wincing. 

Q groaned eloquently, "This is why I have tension that could resemble being carved of marble, James. Because of _you_." 

James smiled at the teasing instead of the outright war. "Well, I needed a clear head to help you lot with the tinkering. And I'm bloody glad that there's been an order for more; Moneypenny ordered twenty in total, we only got the first part of the shipment because she wanted to make sure that we got the highest-quality on the cleaning end of the spectrum, as well as being capable of having your modifications added to it." 

Q looked at him for a minute before bursting into laughter, throwing his head back and letting his hands fold over his chest, partly afraid of what leaving Eve and James to handle his dealings would mean if he were to retire to a life only of tinkering. 

"I don't want to imagine the kind of reaming they received for only bringing us six of the ordered twenty..." 

Q laughed harder, shaking his head, "Oh, lord." 

James caught up one hand, getting Q out of his seat and headed for the couch, unable to resist even slightly curling up around him on their way. Q let out a pitiful sound, shuffling like he was dead-tired. James brought him down next to him on the couch, tipping his head up to kiss him softly as they fell together neatly. 

Q sighed, humming as James ran his fingers through Q's curls and nuzzling into James's cheek until the man gave in and kissed him. James liked Q like this; sleepy and lax, his eyelashes a dark smudge on each cheek as he let James do whatever he wanted; only urging him further when he needed it. James released his mouth slowly, leaning back sweep his shirt off, pressing in again once the thin fabric had been thrown halfway across the room. Q's fingers spread over the bare skin over his bandages, gentle touches spreading over his shoulders, down to the fastenings that Q had put on his back. James sighed as Q's fingers gently worked down his back, gently starting to loosen the pressure bandage. James sighed, pressing his forehead just under Q's jaw. 

Q brushed his hands over the contours of James's chest, down his sides and over his back, "This isn't actually what I intended." James chuckled, "Or I would've taken us...to the bed..." James folded his arms around Q's waist, pulling him to straddle James's thighs. 

"Good thing it's my job to plan ahead for you..." Q laughed, biting lightly at James's neck before reaching over, trusting James to keep him from falling as he overbalanced in order to reach. 

Returning to his perch on James's lap, Q handed him the lube, leaning forward against his chest, raising his arse off James's knees. James's pupils blew, and he licked filthily into Q's mouth, fisting one hand in his hair before he could tear himself away to strip Q's lazy-day clothes away.

Getting his hands on Q's skin became imperative, and James smirked as Q bit into his lower lip, thrusting down against his hips before he'd let James break away from his mouth. 

"Either I take it off or I tear it off..." James rumbled, "your choice." 

Q whined brattily into the next kiss, but finally let it go, snatching his shirt back out of James's hand to throw it as far as he could, folding his long hands around the back of James's neck, teasing his fingers into James's hair. James groaned as he remembered that Q had left his glasses at the desk, making a mental note to grab them if he could before Q pulled him into sleep. James had learned that Q's nightmares were easier to come down from if he could see once he'd woken. James weighed the probabilities, deciding that carrying Q to bed and getting his glasses on the way was the best of his options. 

Securing an arm under Q's hips, James lifted, keeping their mouths tangled up together so that Q couldn't easily object. He walked blindly, knowing his way around their flat and confident enough from returning at all hours that he could make it where he needed to go with his whole world taken up by the hundred and seventy pounds of Quartermaster in his arms. 

Q's glasses were caught up in his fingertips before he let Q so much as breathe again, and James smirked to himself in victory as Q's breath sent goosepimples over his skin, the heat of the two of them making James a little crazy. James slid his free hand under the waistband of his sleep pants, shoving them down his hips ruthlessly with pants, and stumbling slightly out of them, sighing as he finally got out of them, the hand keeping Q against his chest curling slowly into an eager fist as he fucked his tongue in Q's mouth, groaning. 

Dumping them both on the bed, James only narrowly avoided Q falling against the tube of lube, groaning as Q let him out of the tight clutch of his legs in order to slide his sweats down his legs, fingers dragging divots down his legs as he swept the fabric away. "You're gorgeous, Q." James sighed, lowering his head to Q's hips and sucking a hard mark into the curve of the left hipbone. James rumbled low and gravelly as he licked the mark, Q's fingers trying to tug on his hair but unable to find any purchase. "You're perfect for me. You fit against me so gorgeously." 

Q tipped his head back, moaning. "Bond, you'd best get to this, or I'm going to start and finish on my own." 

James chuckled, but did as he was told, uncapping the lube and blindly slicking his fingers while Q's legs wrapped around his hips once more, loose enough for James to reach down between them and tease his fingers over Q's pucker. Q let out a desperate whine, his fingers aching at how tightly he clutched at James's shoulders. "Let's make this one of the memories that get me through a mission." James growled, and Q laughed, throwing his head back more so that James would have access to his throat than in mirth. Q knew what a lie that was; for as wild as the job made him on coming home, James had a delicacy to him that Q knew traced back to just how rough the job got. James could be rough and wild; especially when he'd just come back from a mission, but there was nothing to either of them like the way Q could make James tremble with the softest of touches and come undone with a heady sweetness in every way they came together. 

Q understood it; he understood that, more often than not, James was pressed into athletic, rough, and wild sex with the beautiful men and women that he needed to sleep with in order to keep Queen and country safe. James's weakness for his voice came from what hearing Q's voice made him feel: safe, loved, and happy. It broke Q's heart, that James _needed_ this softness. That being enfolded in safe, strong arms brought James low more than sex ever could. Q: a creature of comfort, warmth, and as close to stability as he could manage hated to know that James and he matched more than anyone would ever have guessed, and the constant upheaval of his life was nothing short of a tragedy to James Bond's psyche. Q had nested, before James came into his life; with blankets and pillows; junk food and movies and anything he could need save the toilet--but with James, it wasn't just Q's laptop close at hand. There was a gun taped under the coffee table and a set of throwing knives in the cushions of his uncomfortable couch so that James could feel safe laying in Q's nests, too. 

It was those things that got James Bond through a mission; the feeling of waking up in Q's warm bundle, safe and happy and comfortable with the person he was with. For as much as sex was a part of James Bond, he knew now that it was not solely a weapon or a tool. With Q, he could trust anything--everything. He could give himself over to Q, and know that he'd be kept safe. 

Q stroked his fingers over James's neck, shaking as James began to tease his fingers into the tight heat of his arse, the maddeningly slow, fluid motion of his fingers drawing out Q's reserves of patience. Q's beautifully fluttering lashes only made the picture prettier as his mout dropped open, lips nearly fuchsia and cheeks the pink of a damn good sunset. "You have no proper idea of how pretty you are," James sighed. 

Q's breathing caught, his tongue flashing out to wet his lips, "I carry your heart with me," Q whispered, "I carry it in my heart. I am never without it--" rocking his hips against James's as much as he could, as James twisted his fingers to make the breathy moan of Q's voice catch, "anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling. I fear no fate...for you are my fate, my sweet--" 

"I want no world--for, beautiful, you are my world, my true. And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant; and whatever a sun will always sing is you. Here is the deepest secret nobody knows--here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and sky of the sky of a tree called life which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide; and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart..." James breathed against Q's skin as he breathed the words he'd leave for Q any time the job called him out of their bed before Q would wake, "I carry your heart; I carry it in my heart."

Q kissed him then, tugging on James's short hair and squirming on his fingers; moaning long and deep at the sound of James's voice. "God, James. I think I'm beginning to understand..." Q moaned. 

"My voice is nothing compared to yours...but thank you for the compliment." Laughing, James tipped Q gently back against the bed, sliding his fingers free and slicking himself quickly; unable, after Q had tried so valiantly to give him his voice, to leave Q without the touch he needed. James laid himself over Q, covering him under the broader spread of his body as he slid slowly into Q's heat; his heart nearly stopping at how desperately he suddenly found himself needing to come. 

Q moaned, his hands shaking on James's shoulders as he urged James's weight slowly down on him, pressing him into kiss after desperate kiss. 

"Are you okay?" James asked softly when he'd judged that enough of his weight was on Q that he could be starting to feel uncomfortable. 

"Bloody move, James; before I take control and leave you in the dust." Q ground out, nails biting half-moons into the soft back of James's neck. 

James eased his hips into a slow, careful pace, watching Q's expressions to know when it was really safe to get into a rhythm. James was slow and thorough with Q, though his usual finesse was shot to hell every time Q let out a particularly delicious moan. Q's fringe of lashes were heavy against his flushed-pink cheeks as he took in shaky breaths, shifting slightly and sharing a groan with James, "It's true..." He murmured, voice high and almost indistinct. James looked at him, the ice blue of his eyes something Q felt like he was a step away from falling into headlong, "you do carry my heart." 

James took his chin in his hand, pressing a soft touch of lips to Q's and smiling to himself, fully and deliriously happy.


End file.
